Remember all those time your kids complained: “How can I look up the spelling if I don’t know how to spell it!” I am that way with marsca…I mean…mascarpone cheese. Looking at my grocery list right this moment, I can see I have written: “marscapone.” Unfortunately, for my dignity, that is also the way I have always pronounced it out loud.

But now I think I’ve finally got it, and to no surprise, I can now find it easily in my gourmet dictionaries and cookbooks.

Mascarpone [mas-car-POHN or  mas-car-POH-nay] cheese is an Italian fresh cream cheese made from cow’s cream, curdled with either the addition of lemon juice or another source of citric acid, and left for at least 24 hours to drain in a cheesecloth sack.  Or, in the commercial world, the same thing done in a controlled stainless-steel vat.

This cheese, also known as Italian cream cheese, has a delicate flavour with a hint of acidity. It is also sometimes called double or triple cream; that gives you an idea of just how rich this stuff is.

It has been a staple in Italian cooking for centuries,  but with the increasing globalization of cuisines, the deluge of cooking shows, and our discovery of Tiramisu, that “decadent  and yet easy to make” dessert, mascarpone has become a fixture in the dairy case of most grocery stores. The soft, white cheese is generally sold in plastic tubs.

Tiramisu is sponge cake or lady fingers, soaked in espresso and coffee liqueur, layered with a mixture of whipped mascarpone, eggs, vanilla, chocolate, and sugar. It’s sort of an Italian version of English trifle.

Tiramisu is not a traditional Italian dessert in the hundreds-of-years’-old sense. The heavenly concoction was created sometime in the ‘70s. Depending upon your source, there are at least three different interpretations of the word tiramisu. It has been translated as “Pick me up,” implying that after a mouthful of this divine dessert you may swoon, or “carry me up” as in take me to heaven, or “pick-me-up,” an expression referring to the high sugar and caffeine content of the dessert.

In Italy, mascarpone is used for much more than dessert. It is used in risottos and creamy pasta sauces, and soups. You will find a recipe using mascarpone in probably four out of five current cooking magazines. Just look for something in the way of “easy, rich, fresh fruit dessert.”

Mascarpone cream —I know, that seems redundant— is made by mixing the cheese with heavy cream, lemon zest, sugar, and vanilla.  This can be layered with fruit in a parfait, or simply dolloped on fruit flans and tarts. With white chocolate added, it is a great dip for strawberries. It is often used as a filling for cannoli (NOT cannelloni) and tuiles (Does NOT rhyme with the stuff they make tutus from.) Cannoli are Italian pastry shells fried in a cigar shape and filled with cream cheese fillings. Tuiles (French for “tiles” and pronounce TWEEL) are thin almond cookies that are cooled on special forms that make them look like roof tiles, or less extravagantly, draped over the neck of a wine bottle.

“Why spend hours making custard,” one recipe exclaims. For a simple topping to apples and pears baked in Calvados, butter, and brown sugar, use mascarpone and brown sugar, and then broil.

Some cookbook authors go to extremes to dream up uses for mascarpone. In one of my newest books, Flavours, a West coast chef creates some pretty exhausting recipes; exhausting in time, ingredients, and special cookware required. (I have learned to be fairly creative with substitutions.)

There are recipes for a crab and mascarpone parfait, an oyster turnover with fennel and mascarpone, anise liqueur, spinach, and prosciutto, and a mascarpone and white wine cream sauce for (homemade!) cheese ravioli with sautéed spinach, pine nuts, raisins, and sun dried tomatoes. He also does a smoked black cod (sablefish) and mascarpone pâté, served over a salad of blue potatoes and arugula. I think I’d skip the potatoes and use this for stuffing celery boats.

One of my favourite sounding (because I haven’t actually tried any of these yet) recipes is pears halved, cored, and then stuffed with the cheese. They are put back together and held with a toothpick, rolled in cinnamon and sugar, wrapped in parchment paper and baked. Wow! 

Probably the strangest recipe I found for using mascarpone was mixing it with parsley, thyme, tarragon, lemon zest, and garlic, and then stuffing it under the skin of a whole chicken before roasting.  I’ll reserve judgement on that until I try it sometime…or not!

One recipe, a parfait of strawberries, mascarpone, and chocolate liqueur called “Aphrodisiac,” says it all.

The bad news is that finding true, fresh mascarpone is not going to be easy. As with all fresh (un-ripened) cheeses, it is highly perishable, and needs to be used quickly. The product you will find in the grocery store that calls itself mascarpone is really a mixture of mascarpone, citric acid, sugar, and at least three types of thickeners and stabilizers. Look for a brand with the least amount of additives.

Mascarpone can be substituted by using regular cream cheese mixed with whipping cream, butter, or sour cream. Mascarpone can be made lighter by folding in beaten egg whites or Ricotta cheese can be whipped in a blender for a low-fat substitute. But really, why would you bother?

I will in the meantime, continue my search for some authentic, fresh marsca…M-A-S-C-A-R-P-O-N-E! Old habits die hard.